Sumerianz Journal of Business Management and Marketing, 2020, Vol. 3, No. 11, pp. 174-182 ISSN(e): 2617-0175, ISSN(p): 2617-1724 Website: https://www.sumerianz.com DOI: https://doi.org/10.47752/sjbmm.311.174.182 © Sumerianz Publication CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 Original Article Open Access *Corresponding Author 174 174 Corporate Governance and Financial Performance of Listed Healthcare Sector Companies in Nigeria Lyndon M. Etale * Department of Accounting, Faculty of Management Sciences, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria Email: lyndonetale@yahoo.com Seth W. Tueridei Department of Accounting, Faculty of Management Sciences, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria Article History Received: October 11, 2020 Revised: November 24, 2020 Accepted: November 26, 2020 Published: November 28, 2020 Abstract The Healthcare sector companies are veritable investment companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The study aimed to investigate the effect of corporate governance and financial performance of listed healthcare sector companies in Nigeria. It employed the ex-post facto research design and equally used secondary data generated from the annual report and accounts of all eight (8) sampled listed healthcare sector companies in Nigeria from 2008 to 2019. The sample size was arrived at by using a purposive sampling technique. The study analysed the data using least square, descriptive and covariance techniques. It adopted Tobin-Q as a measure for firm financial performance, whereas corporate governance variables include board size, board independence and managerial ownership. From the empirical results, the study concludes that there are some level of significance between financial performance and two out of the three corporate governance variables (board independence and managerial ownership). However, the correlation result shows no relationship among the variables examined. The study, therefore, recommends that companies in the healthcare sector should as a matter of necessity embrace complete compliance to corporate governance structure in order to attract the tremendous benefits and improve corporate financial performance therein. This could be done simultaneously with the governance structure at the district, state or hospital level to achieve greater performance. More so, further studies could examine other corporate governance variables together with the already examined variables in this study. Other financial performance variable could also be employed to ascertain any relation or significance among them for the healthcare sector companies. Keywords: Corporate governance; Financial performance; Healthcare sector; Tobin-Q. 1. Introduction The occurrence of coronavirus, code-named Covid-19 which the World Health Organization (WHO) called a pandemic and the concerted efforts of the governments globally to contain its spread in the first three quarters of the year 2020 have positively confirmed the saying that indeed 'Health is Wealth'. As the health of humans is critical and key to every human's activity so is the health (financial performance) of any company. For any company to fulfil its core mandate, such company must and should always be in good financial health. For such to occur, the day-to-day activities should be under the control and supervision of competent hands to regulating the company's activities. One of the ways by which activities of companies are regulated is through the corporate governance structure. Corporate governance refers to the relationship which exists among different participants in a company for the attainment of the objectives of the company. Corporate governance mechanisms exist to assist companies to perform better through quality decision making (Shivaani et al., 2017). They are enhanced by transparency and proper disclosure practices. Maier (2005) sees corporate governance as a “set of relationships between a company’s management, its board, its shareholders and its stakeholders”. To John and Senbet (1998) and as cited in Adewuyi and Olowookere (2008), corporate governance refers to measures involving how all stakeholders in the company attempt to ensure that managers and other insiders adopt mechanisms that safeguard the interest of the stakeholders”. It becomes imperative to ensure that good and sound corporate governance exist and is being maintained in listed healthcare sector companies. Interestingly, in the healthcare sector, governance shows the accountability of the boards and leaders for continuous operational improvement, together with clinical staff and processes, society and improvement in financial performance. The board of directors and executive management in the healthcare are in charge of all aspects of corporate governance; and more-so, financial performance, compliance with laws, and regulations as well as business ethics are all subsets of corporate governance. Corporate governance is necessary because healthcare companies are accountable to their stakeholders and the surrounding communities in which they operate. Furthermore, financial performance, being an integral part of the study, gives a more exact perspective of the performance of companies both in the healthcare and other sectors of the economy. It measures the financial health of a company and shows how the managers have judiciously utilized the scarce human and physical resources